Victoria on Saturday recorded 19 Covid deaths and 7224 new cases.Of the new infections, 2545 came from PCR tests and 4679 from rapid antigen kits.There are 487 people hospitalised with 79 in intensive care and 20 on ventilators.The total number of active cases now stands at 55,102.The state’s code brown restrictions are set to end on Monday because the number of infected people in hospital continues to plummet.The restrictions — which aimed to ease pressure by streamlining emergency management systems due to the high number of Covid patients — were put in place in mid-January following Victoria’s Omicron peak.Once the code was triggered, hospitals were able to postpone staff members’ leave, redeploy workers to areas of urgent need and redistribute hospital resources.Extraordinary details released by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) have confirmed the protection provided by current vaccines can wane from 80 per cent to as little as zero in just four months.The national drug regulator’s updated advice said “early estimates” of vaccine effectiveness against infection of the Omicron variant similarly indicated “lower initial vaccine effectiveness” from two doses of both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.At best, the estimates mean a double-dosed person will lose 50 per cent of their protection in just 120 days.The initial estimate of 36-88 per cent protection “wanes rapidly to 0-34 per cent from about 4 months after the second dose”.ATAGI said “steadily accumulated” data indicates that the numerous mutations within the spike protein receptor of the Omicron variant “facilitates immune escape” and therefore increases the likelihood of reinfection in individuals previously infected with earlier variants, and breakthrough infection of vaccinated individuals.The updated advice says a Pfizer booster dose “appears” to restore moderate levels of effectiveness against symptomatic Omicron infection by 71 to 76 per cent.“Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation with Omicron shows a similar pattern of waning, falling to 52 per cent after a two-dose primary series,” the ATAGI release reads. “A booster dose increases vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation to 88 per cent.”Australia recently shaved the waiting period for booster shots down to three months as the Omicron variant continues to rip through the east coast.The advisory group stressed there “have been no safety signals of concern for an earlier booster dose given from three months after the primary series where this is used overseas (e.g. United Kingdom)”.
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